Dianthus Stories
Chapter Eleven - The New Potions Master
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Anything you
recognize belongs to someone else, namely, JK Rowling.
the HP universe, characters from same.
Sadly, I have no hope of publishing this story outside the fan fiction
characters I’ve created. Feel free to
give me critical feedback, including flames and harsh criticism.
personal embarrassment, but I do promise to read it and incorporate it if I
feel it improves the story.
*****
This is Chapter
Eleven. Smut begins in Chapter Twenty
Six, so if you’re only looking for that, feel free to skip ahead.
of the stuff in those later chapters if you don’t stick it out.
*****
Chapter Eleven –
The New Potions Master
Dianthus refused
to dwell on the matter on Monday, but Tuesday was her N.E.W.T. level Potions
class, so there was no avoiding it.
After lunch, she trudged to the dungeons with Martine.
the center of the small crowd waiting outside the dungeon door, but there
wasn’t much cover. This level class only
had eight students in it, four Ravenclaws and four
swept down the stairs precisely on time, and after opening the door, he waited
as they filed through it. Dianthus didn’t
look at him as she passed.
Snape seated
himself at the teacher’s desk and opened what appeared to be a brand new grade
book. He studied it for a moment as the
class waited quietly. Finally, he
cleared his throat and began taking the roll.
Dianthus’ was the first name he called, and she responded promptly, if
dully, “Here, Professor.” His gaze
flickered coolly over her, and he continued reading names from his attendance
list.
“Well,” he said,
once this task was completed. “This is
an N.E.W.T. level class, and therefore we should be able to assume that you
know why you are here. You plan on
sitting the N.E.W.T examination at the end of term.”
leaned against its edge, his arms crossed.
“Therefore, let us begin by discussing the importance of the N.E.W.T.
examination.” Every teacher she’d had
thus far that year had begun their class in much the same way, and Dianthus’
attention began to wander almost immediately.
She took the opportunity to examine him more closely.
He was as
painfully thin as she remembered him being, and perhaps just a few inches
taller. His greasy black hair was just
as long as it had been, and he still had the habit of occasionally brushing it
out of his face as he spoke. His tense
posture hadn’t changed, either: his body
was ready to spring into battle. '> His
nose seemed more prominent now that his blemishes had cleared up.
thought he might not have seen the sun at all since leaving Hogwarts.
nice to listen to, actually – and then she noticed that he had stopped
speaking. Martine surreptitiously
stepped on her foot, and Dianthus realized, too late, that Snape must have
asked her a question.
“I’m sorry,
Professor, I – I–”
“I believe you are
trying to tell me that you were not listening?” he said, his voice soft and
cold. He didn’t give her a chance to
answer. “I will expect you to pay closer
attention in my classes in the future, Miss Brandywine, but as this is our
first session, I will give you a second chance.
Please tell us the properties and uses of synsepalum
dulcificum.
Surely this is an easy question for a student of your caliber?”
smile that she recognized – and didn’t like at all.
But as it
happened, Dianthus did know the
properties and uses of synsepalum dulcificum,
and she replied confidently, “Synsepalum
berries which, when eaten, prevent the taste buds from processing certain
flavors. It can be added to potions to
eliminate sour or bitter tastes. It is
most often sold as a powder, although the berries can be ingested directly.
it grows best in warm climates, and is therefore extremely difficult to find in
Snape nodded
slowly as she spoke. When she finished,
he said, “That is acceptable.
as I happen to know that your grandfather grows them, I am not impressed.
for your wandering attention.”
Her jaw
dropped. He cocked his head to the side
and raised an eyebrow at her, as if waiting or hoping for an angry retort, and
she snapped her mouth shut. He flashed
potions. In general, one attempts to
develop solutions that are neutral in flavor, but quite often the particular
mixture of vital ingredients results in potions that are, of necessity, quite
vile to consume.”
He segued into a
lecture about several different ingredients that might improve the flavor of
various potions. As he knowledgably
described the way they might help or hinder a potion’s effectiveness, Dianthus
saw that knew a lot about the
intricacies of potions making. He
identified interactions she’d never even considered, and his casual intimacy
with her favorite subject only infuriated her more.
concentrated on making a serious effort to look like she wasn’t paying
attention to a bit of it, while surreptitiously taking down every word he said.
He finished up,
and assigned them a footfoot long essay detailing how these ingredients might
interact with various common herbs, to be turned in the following class.
the majority of this year, and it will not do to have cauldrons exploding each
class period. Class dismissed.”
Brandywine, please stay behind a moment.”
Dianthus and
Martine both stopped short at his statement.
They were halfway to the door, having gathered their things as quickly
as they could the instant he had ended his lecture.
motioned for her to continue on without her.
“I’ll wait outside for you,” Martine whispered to her.
earlier, Dianthus drew a deep breath and turned back to face Snape.
She slouched to
the teacher’s desk and stood in front of it, carefully looking at a point just
beyond Snape’s right ear. “Yes,
Professor?” she said, in what she hoped was a neutral tone.
He said nothing
for a long moment. Then he said.
Miss Brandywine.”
Her eyes snapped
to his; she saw suppressed amusement there – and her anger boiled over.
His expression turned
inscrutable. “I see that your vocabulary
has not improved, Miss Brandywine.”
“Why did you take
points from Ravenclaw? I answered your
question.”
He gazed at her a
moment longer. “Because
I am your instructor.”
“I see,” she
snapped. “Putting me in my place right
away, then?”
“Yes,” he said
smoothly. “I am your instructor, and you
are my student. As my student, you are
required to pay attention when I speak.
You will be the only one to suffer if your attention wanders.
you, of course,” he added, his eyes glittering brightly.
“So Ravenclaw pays
the price just so you can show me who’s the boss.
knbut but she couldn’t stop herself.
Snape glowered at
her, his nostrils flaring. “And you are
as easily distracted as you ever were,” he hissed.
through this year, slack off in my
class, simply because of our – prior friendship.”
Dianthus was
fuming, but she kept her voice cold and low.
“You admitted yourself, a long time ago, that you were not a friend to
me.” She hesitated a beat, then gave him her most malicious sneer as she said, “I
have every intention of doing well on my N.E.W.T., even with you as my
instructor.” It was nothing compared to
what he could dish out, but she thought it was pretty good, considering she was
so angry that she was actually shaking.
paled even further. “Dismissed,” Snape
growled, his eyes narrowed into black slits.
Dianthus stalked
to the exit and slammed the door behind her.
Martine was pacing up and down the hall, but ran to her
immediately. “What the hell was that
about?” she asked breathlessly, as they began climbing the stairs out of the
dungeon.
Dianthus snorted,
still irate. “Wanted to make sure I knew
he wasn’t going to let me slide this year.”
“Are you kidding
me?”
“I kid you not.”
“He had nothing
else to say?”
“He told me I have
a foul mouth.”
Martine considered
this statement, then shrugged.
At dinner, Martine
lost no time in telling the other roommates about their Potions class.
could tell her off again!” Martine waved
her chicken leg in the air for emphasis as she spoke, and then tore a huge hunk
out of it and began chewing viciously.
“Told you,”
grunted
is a supreme fucker.”
“He – he didn’t
have anything else to say?” Melanie asked, tentatively.
“What the bloody
hell else could he have to say, Mel?” replied Dianthus, moodily.
melancholy over the situation. To top it
off, she saw her chances for perfecting the healing potion slipping away,
without Professor Incompertus to help her figure out the problem.
Snape for help, she’d already decided that.
To her surprise,lanilanie looked at her very seriously.
“Did he apologize for never writing to you?”
Dianthus groaned
and shook her head. “Have you not been
listening, Mel? The entire point of the
whole thing was to emphasize that we are not
friends. He obviously wasn’t about
to apologize for anything.” She turned
and cast a baleful look up the staff table, where Snape was plowing through his
dinner, seemingly completely oblivious to his surroundings, certainly oblivious
to her irate stare.
Late that night,
Dianthus woke from a sound sleep.
Something Snape had said that afternoon rang in her ears, as clearly as
if he had been saying them in her dream.
You are as easily distracted as
you ever were. He had spoken the
words as if only months had passed since they’d seen each other, rather than
years. As if they were sitting across
from each over the chess board, rather than the instructor’s desk that now
separated them like the
things that had happened in the past.
That Thursday,
Dianthus did something she had never done.
Rather than going to Potions in the afternoon, she gave her completed
essay to Martine and reported to the hospital wing immediately after lunch.
had eaten something that didn’t agree with her.
The head nurse looked doubtfully at her, but gave her an anti-nausea
potion and allowed her to lie down on an empty bed for the afternoon.
simply couldn’t bear another class with Snape right at the moment.
Martine told her
at dinner that they needed to write two feet on a list of ingredients known to
affect the nervous system. Dianthus
glanced up at the staff table. She could
have sworn that Snape had been looking her, sworn she felt his eyes on her, but
his head was bent over his plate and he was chewing mechanically on roast
beef. Perhaps he hadn’t noticed her
absence that afternoon, she thought. It
was extremely unlikely, given the size of the class, but it was the only hope
she had.
They were working
on their Arithmancy homework in the common room the next evening, when a
nervous-looking third-year Dianthus knew only in passing approached their table
and cleared his throat. They all glanced
up at him, but he looked directly at Dianthus and blurted out, “Does Professor
Snape really know the Dark Arts?”
“How the hell
should I know?” Dianthus retorted, her face burning.
“Because they said
he was teaching you the Dark Arts, in your first year,” said the boy in a
quavering voice. “Dianthus, is he going
to hex us if we screw up in class?”
“If you don’t get
the fuck out of here,” snarled
wand from the table, “I’m going to
hex you!” He scampered away, looking at
wand with terror in his round face.
“Oh, jeez,” sighed
Melanie. “I forgot about that story.”
<
“Apparently,
no one else did,” muttered Dianthus.
She looked around. It seemed to
her as though several of her fellow students glanced away when she tried to
catch their eye. “I wonder who’s been
spreading that one around?”
“If they’re
spreading that one, they’re probably spreading the other one, too,” said
Martine, in a low voice. Without a word,
Dianthus dumped her unfinished Arithmancy homework and her books into her bag,
and bolted up the stairs for their dormitory.